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Some Quick First Impressions: Free! and Brothers Conflict

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Tamayura More Aggressive

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is entering her second year of high school.
Well, there was no way for this not to, but Tamayura just delivered my favorite first episode of the new season so far. But yeah, we’re barely in it yet, and this show does have the advantage of an entire season plus OVAs of build-up so it did cheat. But nevertheless: that was so adorable. I really missed this, and throughout this episode I nearly dreamt away at its leisurely pace and soothing soundtrack (the music also is the best of the season so far). There really were a lot of flashbacks in this episode, so this probably is not the best episode for if you decide to marathon the entire season, but I have to admit: I got so nostalgic that I got a bit teary-eyed from how incredibly genuine this episode felt. Now, I expect this season to do more than the first season. Being such a relaxing series has its limit, so Sato Junichi, you’ve got your work cut out for you: develop these characters! Do something interesting with them! You’ve got the right ingredients, so don’t be lazy and take the easy way out!
OP: The music of the actual series was better.
ED: D’awwwwwww~~
Potential: 90%

Free!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character likes to swim.
Seriouly, my first impression when I started up this episode: “These guys all sound like girls!” – Thankfully this just seemed to be about their child-versions and Kyoani just couldn’t be arsed to get convincing actors for children for just two measly minutes, but the fact the entire cast has girly names doesn’t make things any less obvious. Now, on a more serious note: this was decent slice of life, with its positives and negatives. The bad points are two of the main characters, who are nothing but annoying straight men offering pointless commentary and still acting way too muh like girls. Tis show is also really weird in showing the obsession that the characters have with swimming. Being passionate, okay, but putting on a semi-naked apron while cooking is just ridiculous. What I liked was the chemistry between the two lead characters. It brought up interesting points about how people change significantly as they grow up as adolescents, and if this series can actually focus on this then it will become quite good (but do note that this IS Kyoani, whose slice of life shows are pretty infamous for NOT doing that…). And yeah, the animation is really good, and the soundtrack has some pretty catchy tunes, like expected. Also, why the dubstep?
OP: A standard J-Rock opening where the singers try a bit better than usual.
ED: Silly dancing!
Potential: 60%

Brothers Conflict

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live in a house full of hot guys, eh brothers.
This show… it’s shows like this that make me ashamed of being an anime fan. If this was a standalone incident, then I’d just write this off as one of those silly gimmick series. But I’m sick of all these goddamn incest shows! They just keep making them! Why is there SO MUCH demand for them? You really want to turn this into a genre? I mean, the girl arrives at her new house full of brothers and immediately this show keeps throwing around romantic hints. If you want to make a harem that badly, then go for a harem! Also, if things couldn’t be any worse, the creators also for some inexplicable reason threw in this animal mascot who is supposed to protect the (incredibly bland) female lead from all of the advances that her brothers make on her. WHAT!?
OP: Again, why the romantic hints? WHY!?
ED: Dear god… those vocalists are terrible
Potential: 0%

Yondemasuyo, Azazel-San Z Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Reviewing a comedy sequel usually is quite simple: in most cases it just drops the bomb and runs out of inspiration, and in rare cases it actually manages to stay hilarious. The tricky thing with these kinds of series is that you need to remain funny, and you need to have the inspiration for that. The usual two methods are 1) doing the same thing over and over again or 2) take the prequel and make it more over the top at the areas that it excelled in. Azazel-san chose option 2, but it became both much better and much worse than the first season.

What I mean by that is that is that on one hand, I laughed much more and harder at its jokes. Seriously, the first arc is the best out of the entire series, including all of the OVAs that were made. Moloch has always been a fantastic character, but Azazel-san also grows into this character who just continues to bring me to stitches. And this show knows how to use the two of them. It loves to just kick them into situations that show their funniest sides. And at their best, the banter between the characters is just hilarious and the funniest thing I’ve seen all season.

At its worst though… dear god, this show descends into some depths here. The first season was incredibly vulgar, but the show did manage to make it interesting and varied. It was admirable how much bile it threw at the viewer and how unapologetic it was. So what was the answer of the second season to this? Sex jokes. Lots and lots of bad sex jokes, ranging from bleeding asses to bsdm and lots of willies.

This show doesn’t know what it’s good at. At one moment I’m nearly falling off my chair laughing, at others I’m yelling at the screen for the umpteenth penis that the creators wanted to shove in, and this is especially prevalent in the middle arcs of this series. Still, unlike the first season, I can’t find any arc that was completely boring: every arc, no matter which depths it descended into, made me laugh.
One-Sentence Review: This show’s pitch-black humour is second to none, Azazel and Moloch are awesome, but prepare for a slew of really bad sex jokes.
Suggestions:
– Hen Zemi
– Detroit Metal City
– Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu

Some Quick First Impressions: Gifuu Doudou!! Kanetsugu to Keiji, Kamisami no Inai Nichiyoubi and Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Gifuu Doudou!! Kanetsugu to Keiji

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a famous hero from the Sengoku Era.
Okay. Hands down, bar none. This was the biggest WTF of the season, and I don’t think that any other series will be able to top this. And I already KNEW that this series would be weird. For those of you who don’t know the bizarre background for this series: it’s based on a manga written by the guy who wrote Fist of the North Star (the incredibly muscly over the top action story that basically created the Shounen Genre). The story was adapted by Yasuhiro Imagawa, the guy who directed the New Mazinger, the first Giant Robo, and some more really epic mecha series. It’s direted by the director of Hetalia. Yeah. In my mind I was already imagining these incredibly muscly guys yelling and fighting non-stop in an incredibly over the top way while at the same time having gay romantic antics. Um yeah, about that fighting. Let me tell you exactly how much fighting there is in this series: two people slash a sword, and a guy fires an arrow. Beyond that, this show is all about TALKING about fighting. And that with the gay romantic undertones. I know this is hard to believe, but this show is even camper than Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Everything is so incredibly sentimental that this episode became completely hilarious. And don’t get me wrong, the animation is crap, and it hardly ever tries to make actual jokes. It’s all about the atmosphere in this show. The camp, camp, camp atmosphere.
OP: Samurai baby, yeah baby
ED: The art is nice and all, but those facial expressions are unsettling…
Potential: 80% (hey it made me laugh, okay?)

Kamisami no Inai Nichiyoubi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a gravekeeper
So yeah, lots of series tend to follow a tried and true format in one way or the other. For this, it’s the one about the guy who ends up together with a young girl who has special powers, only where most of these series make the girl really talented or smart in one way or the other, the girl here is weak; much like your average young girl, except that it this show doesn’t treat her like that and throws all sorts of horrible things at her. For a moment I was afraid that this series just went with a young girl for the cuteness factor, but I have to say: I’m impressed. It actually uses the girl’s age really well. She’s meant to be young and naive. The setting has a lot of potential as well: a world in which people ust become zombies when they die. It’s up to the rest of the series to explore exactly what that means: what are the pros and cons? How much of their humanity do these zombies regain? This first episode had some great ideas. The big danger is that it used all of its ideas right at the start. If it didn’t, then this can become quite the interesting series.
Potential: 80%

Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a deranged bibliophile who reincarnates into a dachshund.
It’s not like Gonzo’s animation during their prime days was always good. In fact, they were infamous for having really rushed production schedules, but they had the directors to make up for it. They had the ambition and the writers to make sure that that didn’t matter for their best series. I say this because of one reason: Dog and Scissors was their big chance at a comeback, but it has one major flaw: the comedy sucks! Most of the jokes depend on the banter between the male and female lead, and the delivery is just almost always off: characters just ramble their lines in one-dimensional ways, rather than thinking about things like tonation or delivery. That’s bad for a show that’s supposed to be a comedy. But you know what? I actually liked this episode when it didn’t try to be funny. I’m baffled a bit myself, but seriously this show has some creativity, and I knidof felt sorry for the male lead and the whole set-up of the story is much bigger than what you would usually suspect in a series like this. So please, GONZO: focus on the story. Just drop the comedy!
OP: Creative, but again the attempts to be funny failed horribly.
ED: Okay I have to admit the dancing security guards were pretty funny.
Potential: 70%

Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet Review – 81/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet



Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet tells the storyline of a planet that is completely submerged, with only giant ships residing on the surface, while one of those ships gets visited by this guy and his AI-mecha from this very technologically advanced civilization. Yes, this show is about world building.

What this show managed to do really well is create a culture for the people who live on these ships, complete with customs, a new religion, a clothe style, a way of behavior. They use the technologically advanced culture well to explore this culture by clashing it, and show the differences. The show can keep this up, and it definitely has some interesting ideas to explore.

The shame is that this is a 13-episoded series that really just needed 26 episodes. It’s not rushed because of that, but it does have pacing issues, and glosses over a lot, and doesn’t really get to explore this setting to its fullest.Same goes for the characters: there are some good ones here: Ledo and his AI have this really good chemistry, and the acting in general is also quite good and down to earth… with some notable exceptions though. There are a number of annoying characters, and really weird character character-decisions that don’t make much sense. The storyline has nice ideas on one hand, but it does get a bit boring and redundant at others. Especially the beginning is good, and the conclusion also has its moments, but in the middle there are a few episodes that could have been better used; they waste too much time.

It’s a solidly produced series, and the creators managed to make this show stand out with tis visuals that manage to remain expressive. Gargantia is a show with issues, but I personally think that the pros weigh over the cons and it’s worth a watch. Just don’t go out of your way to watch it though, because there just are better series.
One-Sentence Review: Good world-building and characterization versus some big pacing issues causing this show to not get the full potential out of its ingredients, by far.
Suggestions:
– Blue Submarine No.06
– Heat Guy J
– Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Yahari Ore no Seishun no Love Come wa Machigatteiru Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


I like surprises, like when a series comes that just turns out to be good against my expectations. Yahari Blahblah from the outside had all the signs to turn into yet another one of those high school comedies: snarky male lead, pointlessly long title that fails at being witty, various other cliched side-characters. And they made something good out of it!

The credit here goes to the original light novels this was based on, because for once, this show aims to stray away from mindless fluff, even though it may not seem like that at first. The lead character at first seems like the umpth snarky male lead, but eventually he sets himself apart to be different by actually using the weaknesses in his own personality as a weapon. This gives him wit that leads to some very insightful character-development, and the great thing is that this series never claims that he is just right, but instead it provides multiple viewpoints at the same issue. The original source material was very well written, and thankfully the creators of the anime managed to carry that over in their adaptation.

The side characters also surprised me. They range from intelligent to… not so intelligent, but I was quite impressed with how so few actually try to play up their own stereotypes. For example, you have the typical blond girl who is the most popular girl in the school, and while she acts cocky, she actually has more to her character than that, and she never really just starts acing like a complete spoiled princess. The lead female at first seems like a Senjogahara-clone, but quickly develops her own traits that make her far less one-dimensional than what you’d expect.

There is a lot of standard high school fare, and this show does linger along at places, not to mention that I feel like its ending is quite rushed and inconclusive. The visuals also aren’t anything special: they are adequate, but the animation never stands out nor falters. Still, for a high school “romantic comedy”, this was pretty damn good.
One-Sentence Review: Takes the generic high-school love-comedy set-up, and makes it good with some deep characters.
Suggestions:
– Umi ga Kikoeru
– Hana-Saku Iroha
– His and Her Circumstances

Chihayafuru Second Season Review – 89/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Chihayafuru



Let’s put this into a bit of perspective: generally to warrant a second season a series needs to sell well in one way or the other. Chihayafuru’s DVD sales were abysmal: it sold like, 500 copies in its first week or so. Despite being a really excellent and well-made series, people just didn’t want to bite, and I had given up on any hope for a continuation. Imagine my surprise when the manga suddenly gets really popular and a second season has been highlighted!

And guess what? The production-values still are completely top-notch. There only are a few episodes with some bad and jerky animations. Otherwise: everything is perfectly crisp, the animation manages to make every single karuta match stand out and sparkle. There still is a ton of eye candy here. Any idea how hard it is to keep up this consistency for like fifty episodes?!

I mean, Chihayafuru’s sequel is just amazing. It continues the trend that the first season set, and just continues on with it, doing so many things right. Every single episode, it doesn’t just push one character forward; it tries to do this with as many characters as possible. No episode is wasted like this, and every episode brings something new to the table. It really is amazing how the creators continue to be able to do this. They introduce quite a few new characters that have a great impact on the storylines, and nearly all of them have some sort of gimmick, yet they feel real, and very relatable. The acting was fantastic in the first season, and that didn’t let up in the second, and the second now has so much build-up and development behind it!

It’s really clear that the creators here have a very good understanding of the game of Karuta: they really manage to flesh out the game even more in this season, and show many different sides of it. A downside is that if you just look at the matches objectively, then this series is a bit predictable in the big picture, but in the small picture, it’s everything but: the creators try their hardest to make the individual karuta-matches as exciting as possible.

This season does have a bit of a downside that it’s the middle arc, so there is no beginning, nor an ending, and because of that the juiciest developments are reserved for the other parts (if they’ll ever get there), and as a result this series does have less subject material, so it can move a bit slow at times. But still this show had some of the best characters of the year.
One-Sentence Review: If this series can’t get you fired up on Karuta, then nothing will; fantastic characterization.
Suggestions:
– Hikaru no Go
– Nodame Cantabile
– Shion no Ou

Valvrave The Liberator Review – 65/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews


Storytelling is hard. You can’t have a storyline that is about a bunch of characters watching paint dry: there needs to be some storyline, some sort of conflict to make things interesting. It’s an intricate balance that you need to find. Put way too much emphasis on the conflict, and you get Valvrave the Liberator.

Valvrave is a series that likes conflict. Every episode is geared to shock twists not really uncommon in a bad soap opera. Characters yell and screwm with drama, and things quickly devolve into this train-wreck of events that favors sensation over suspense of disbelief. The plot in this show tries to adhere Murphy’s law, and when it can’t it’ll just shove in some sort of plothole or -device. Because of all of the overacting the character-development also doesn’t really work because everyone just keeps acting outrageous rather than relatable.

For a while though, it was good. This show got so ridiculous that I just kept watching for my 20 minutes of brainless action per week. If there is anything that this show is good at, it’s eliciting emotions due to how over the top the plot went, and it didn’t seem to take itself seriously either. So of course near the end, it drops all that and starts to play its own story straight. The shocks are just there to shock, rather than to entertain as it tries to take itself so seriously. And that’s where it falls apart so horribly. The characters can’t hold the plot together without the comedy, and the twists… are totally inappropriate and devolve into pointless sensationalism.

Oh yes, they’ll get people talking about it, but not in a good way. There still is a second season due this Fall Season, and in all honesty, with the hints given it can return to its ironic self, but knowing the guy who wrote this it’s just going to devolve into an even bigger trainwreck. I really need to put more thought into what series I drop and keep watching, because this… wasn’t really worth the watch. It’s an easy page-turner, but totally not good storytelling!
One-Sentence Review: As long as it doesn’t take itself seriously, this is mindless bombast and entertainment; when it does, it falls apart completely in this sensationalist trainwreck.
Suggestions:
– Mai Hime
– Infinite Ryvius (an example of how to do such a storyline right)
– Macross Frontier

Hataraku Maou-Sama Review – 81/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Hataraku Maou-Sama



Comedies in anime. Most of them are… juvenile, to say the least. Lots of show center around dumb fanservice humour, and the majority of the ones that are actually funny are so because of their characterization. Hataraku Maou-Sama set out to do something special: it tried to add a bit of intelligence to its jokes. It’s something that it couldn’t keep up for its entire run, but it’s a very interesting attempt nonetheless.

Let alone that for once we aren’t following a bunch of high schoolers, but people who are actually working. Here we have a series in which a demon lord suddenly has to adapt to the human world while being stranded there, and by far the best thing about this series is the way in which he does this. This series likes to build up its humour: with a lot of jokes, you’ll be “ah, so that’s why they did that”. The jokes in this series are really well written, and quite often they really are hilarious.

This series is a mixed bag in the character-department. It has some really fun characters on one hand (Maou and Ashiya make for a very fun and atypical comedy duo), while on the other hand other characters are bland and only annoying (Chiho), and others are sometimes great to watch, and sometimes the creators don’t really seem to know what to do with them. A lot of these problems stem from the fact that as well versed this show is on comedy, it doesn’t really know how to do proper character-development. Change in the characters is either completely predictable, or characters just make giant heel-turns as soon as they’re defeated, and a lot of characters here find it very hard to move away from their one-dimensional caricatures.

So yeah, this series’ biggest strength is its comedy. The problem is, that this isn’t really consistent. Personally, when I watch a comedy, I really want to laugh a lot. Hataraku Maou-Sama has strings of episodes that just aren’t funny enough; for me, at least. It also has one really dumb pool episode that kills a lot of fun as well. this series also may be focused on a demon king, but really: remove that and nothing much would really change in the overall storyline. This series never really uses its own symbolism well, making the overall storyline even flimsier.

As for the production-values: this show looks crisp. Very crisp, and there hardly ever is a badly drawn shot. You can really see that White fox was behind it, because their consistency is always top-notch. This show doesn’t excel in over the top eye-candy, but it still is very pretty to look at, and the soundtrack has one very good track to it that also is used at the moments that suit it best.

The question is: does the best stuff weight up to the boring parts? Well, I’d say that if you easily get annoyed by cliches, then it’s probably better to pass this one up. If you’re looking for very well done comedy, then by all means give this one a chance. Don’t expect much from the storyline, and you’ll be set.
One-Sentence Review: Clever comedy with good build-up, weighing against a bit of a dull storyline.
Suggestions:
– Ben-To
– Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin
– Ooedo Rocket

Random Anime Recommendations

by psgels, posted in Random Anime Recommendations

Hey guys, I’m currently experimenting with a new format, inspired by the podcast I did together with Deadlights, Scammp and Juno. It inspired me to do a bit more with podcasts, but instead short ones. I’ve always had the idea of writing some kind of recommendation post: I mean I’ve written a lot of reviews at this point, but for most people looking for new stuff to watch it can be very intimidating to search through everything, so in these podcasts, instead of discussing the new shows I thought it’d be an interesting experiment to just recommend some older series that I’ve watched.

What I did, is that I’ve created some random generator of all the series that I’ve seen. After deleting some obvious sequels that list totals 964 series, movies and OVAs together. For each series I get, I’ll give reasons why it is recommended, or why it’s not to be recommended. I have no idea what series will come out of it, so it’s going to be completely improvised. Yes, I like to torture myself sometimes.

Also, I apologize for my accent. I’m Dutch, but even then I know it’s terrible. ^^;

These are the series that came out of the random generator this time, in order:

– Akira
– Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu
– Melody of Oblivion
– Love Hina
– Dororon Enma-kun Meerameera
– Kowarekake no Orgol
– She and her Cat

Also, apologies for ending so abruptly. I screwed around while cleaning up and accidentally removed the last few sentences. And feel free to discuss the series that I’ve mentioned. 🙂